eli5: Would making house’s cheaper fix the housing issue?
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Kinda, this is simple and nuanced at the same time. It’s simple as in there are proven paths towards reducing housing costs, as seen all over the world and even in the US. And it’s simple because a driving factor in the states is zoning. I think the nuance comes in when we acknowledge there’s more than one path forward, and we can walk more than one path at a time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc can give you a quick understanding of how zoning is a driving factor here. And a bit of history too. I like this video because it breaks a lot of this down, and doesn’t allow the faux complexity politicians bring to the table in.
Federally regulating ***some*** zoning practices will have a big impact on affordability, pollution, and expanding sustainably.
Zoning keeps us from building proportional dense housing in cities, forcing urban sprawl, and increasing the cost of living. Forcing massive parking lots, taking up space that could have been used for dense housing, or apartments.
Forcing cities to allow more apartment zoning, with public transportation, would help quite a bit. Further requiring that some apartment zoning be used for publicly funded apartments could also force the market to compete with a public option, and lessen how ghoulish we are when it comes to housing rights in the states.
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